The forecast for college basketball: Storming the court

Feb. 7, 2013
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North Carolina State fan Will Privette stormed the court in a wheelchair after the Wolfpack's uspet win over Duke. C.J. Leslie picked Privette up when he saw him without his wheelchair. / Photo courtesy of Oliver Sholder

by Nicole Auerbach, USA TODAY Sports

by Nicole Auerbach, USA TODAY Sports

The scene has played out more than a dozen times on college basketball courts in the past month - with or without a wheelchair.

The clock starts ticking down, and at some point it becomes clear: the visiting team, which happens to be ranked in the top 25, is going to lose. The message begins to spread through the student body. Students head down toward the baselines.

They're going to rush the court. It'll be messy, potentially dangerous and confusing out there, but the students embrace it because, among other things, there's a possibility they'll get on TV. A blend of passion and excitement - fueled, in some cases, by adult beverages - carries them to the court.

"When we got to the court, everyone was jumping up and down," said Stuart, who is triple-majoring in finance, accounting and real estate. "It's kind of crazy. It's kind of like you're in a night club with the lights on, and there's music. Everyone's hugging. I'm hugging kids I'd never seen before. Girls who couldn't name one player on the team are on the court."

Two weeks earlier North Carolina State students, led by wheelchair-bound Will Privette, stormed the floor after knocking off then-No. 1 Duke. The video of the wheelchair court-stormer instantly went viral.

"It all is just kind of a big blur," said N.C. State student body president Andy Walsh, who pushed Privette's wheelchair onto the court. "One of the things I remember the most was how hot it got. Everybody is sweating, pouring sweat, when you leave. Not even just the basketball players who played in the game. There are just so many people, and it happens so quick. There's an adrenaline rush."

Victorious players will often hang around on the court to celebrate with their peers. Meanwhile, opposing players try to get to the nearest exit as soon as physically possible.

"When you're in it for the first time, it's a little shocking," former Duke star Jon Scheyer said via Skype last week. "A lot of times, you're kind of caught out in the open. You're playing the game, and, obviously, the game ends, and you're in the middle of the court. Sometimes, you need to physically get yourself out of the crowd. That was the biggest thing."

In the past 10 seasons, Duke has lost 32 true road games. Fans rushed the court after 26 of them, according to the Wall Street Journal. Two of those losses came this season - to ACC foes N.C. State and Miami. Both resulted in court stormings.

"That's something you expect when you're at Duke," Scheyer said.

Scheyer said the worst part of the experience is the loss itself, not the fans around you. There is the slightest of silver linings, however: At least the opposing fan base thought beating you merited such a reaction.

"It's a statement to your team," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "I tell (my players), 'It's what you want to be. You want to be the team that if you get beat, they have to storm the court.'"

GOOD FOR THE GAME

Calipari's conference, the SEC, has a rule against court storming. that reads, "For the safety of participants and spectators alike, at no time before, during or after a contest shall spectators be permitted to enter the competition area."With that policy comes a $5,000 fine that can be assessed to a school on a first offense and up to $25,000 and $50,000 for additional offenses. That might be one reason that when Arkansas beat No. 2 Florida last night, its fans didn't rush the hardwood.

When South Carolina beat Calipari's then-No. 1 Kentucky team at home in 2010, fans handed $1 bills to then-Gamecocks athletic director Eric Hyman to help defray the cost.

Most coaches interviewed for this story view court-storming as a great part of the sport - with the caveat that nobody gets injured. They say the melee doesn't impact them or their players; it provides students a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

"I watched the Butler-Gonzaga game, and that was a phenomenal ending," Miami coach Jim Larranaga said. "If I'd have been a student, I would have wanted to rush the floor and carry the players off."

Larranaga said he has loved the amount of court-storms this season. He thinks it's good for the game, showing that people care about and attend regular season games.

"You don't get another chance to do that in the NCAA tournament," Larranaga said. "The games are played on neutral sites. There aren't that many students. There are issues with security. The only time you can really do it is a home game. "The students are not going to rush the court until it's some special moment."

Larranaga defines "special" as defeating a highly ranked opponent or a team you haven't beaten in a long time.

But there have been some odd court-storms this season. Cal beat Oregon for the ninth straight time Saturday and stormed the floor. Wake Forest fans rushed the court after beating then-No. 19 N.C. State.

"You're seeing it more and more, and the reason you're seeing it is these games are so dramatic," La Salle coach John Giannini said, who saw his team's fans rush the court after beating Butler. "I grew up in an era where there was no reality TV. The best reality TV I could ever imagine is college basketball. The kids play so hard, the games are so unpredictable and the endings are so dramatic.

"I'm not surprised to see emotional responses. â?¦ The kids that attend that school and support that team and come to all the home games will look back on those games 20, 30, 40 years from now and remember it."

Villanova coach Jay Wright said he's seen alumni in the stands enjoy court-storms because they remember doing it themselves. The two recent Wildcats court-storms following top-five wins were great for current Villanova students, Wright said.

"It's an emotional phenomenon that you can't predict," Wright said. "Whether students rush the court or not, it comes down to how they feel about their team at that time, and their season. ... They rush the court for different reasons. A couple of years ago, for us, if we beat Louisville or Syracuse, nobody would rush the court. They expected it. Whereas This year, the team's young and hasn't had big wins. The kids that are in school for the last two years, they haven't really experienced that. I think they want to. It's good to let the students make that decision. I hear people on TV say sometimes, 'Well, they shouldn't rush for this game.' It's about the students. You only get four years to do that."

Wright said his main concern after both wins was getting his counterpart off the court safely. He said Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim and Louisville coach Rick Pitino tried to make their way over to the Villanova bench to shake hands. Wright said he appreciated the effort, but he didn't want to see them get caught in the mob - so he directed the coaches out through the visitors' tunnel.

Coaches' priorities are the safety of their players, which can be difficult when they're on the losing end. The usual postgame rituals - handshakes and hugs - are abandoned.

"The Indiana game (last season) was nutty," Calipari said. "In a game like that if I know they're going to charge, I will tell the players, 'You're not shaking hands, you'll talk to these guys after.' I'll tell the other coach, 'We're just going in. I'm not going to come out and shake your hand.' We'll have the staff stay out. Sometimes, I'll send the team in early, like eight seconds. Whoever's left on the court, we'll have the staff grab them and get them off the court. You just don't want to get anybody hurt.

"It's great for students. It's something they'll remember their whole lives. The students that were at Indiana, their experience at Indiana will be running on that court, beating Kentucky. You make their year."

But dangers lurk for fans as well as they descend into what can only be compared to a mosh pit. Depending on the layout of the venue and the narrowness of exits, N.C. State's Walsh said, students could potentially get caught up against a rail or pinned down trying to get down a staircase. Larranaga recalls a cheerleader being injured in a court-storm in the early 1980s. But mostly, the court-storm ends up lasting five to 10 minutes with few, if any, injuries.

Scheyer, who's now playing professionally in Spain, thinks too many fan bases are rushing the court this year.

"It doesn't mean as much," Scheyer said. "If you're an unranked team and you beat a top-five team, something like that, or the No. 1 team, rush the floor.

"(But) I feel like you should expect your team to win. I feel like by rushing the floor, you really didn't really believe in your team to win in the first place sometimes."

Like Scheyer, many fans have loose definitions of what they think is acceptable. Top-five wins seem safe from scrutiny, but not all top-10 ones. Does it matter if you beat the same team last season? Can you rush if you're a perennial NCAA tournament team but having a down year?

Ask any college basketball fan those questions, and you'll get mixed answers. Reddy himself isn't a stickler for court-storming rules, but he sees how special the moment itself can be for the sport.

"You know it when you see it, when the moment's big enough," Reddy said. "If you beat a top-five team, unless you're a program like Duke or Kentucky, nobody's going to fault you for doing it. It's one of those things where if the emotion's there, I don't see a problem.

"Pro basketball definitely has better players, and you don't have teams going 1-for-31 in a half, like Northern Illinois did, but it lacks the emotion. â?¦ That's part of what makes college sports so great. Rushing the court and celebrations like that are a little bit of a display of what that emotion is."